Children in Prison in South Africa - Community Law Centre

Bail"Every child has the right not to be detained except asa measure of last resort, in which case, in addition tothe rights a child enjoys under sections 12 and 35, thechild may be detained only for the shortest appropriateperiod.of time" (SA CONSTITUTION, SECTION 28)... all efforts shall be made to apply alternativemeasures [to detention]", (UN RULES 17)Although some of the children had been granted bailduring their trials, often they had not been able topay it. Sometimes it seemed unreasonably high. At' Rustenburg, for example, the bail of one of the boyshad been set at R800. ^The researcher who visited Rustenburg observedthat, although the provisions of Section 29 of theCorrectional Services Act 18 had been in operationfor a year, most of the. Northern Province courts werenot observing them.Quite frequently, there was a history, of corpora!punishment.lS One boy at the Pollsmoor AdmissionCentre told the researcher that he had been whippedon four occasions. A 16 year old boy at St Albans saidhe had previously been sentenced to whipping forstealing a pair of shoes. Another boy, in prison inUmtata, told the story of how he had been whippedat the Uitenhage Court for stealing sweets.At St Albans, a boy of 14 who had been sentencedto eight months for assault with intent to do grievousbodily harm said he had received three cuts "in 1993or 1994" for stealing clothes. At Brandvlei, a boy saidhe had been sjambokked at the age of 14.Of six male unsentenced prisoners being held atPietersburg prison, three had been granted bailwhich they had not been able to afford to pay.'ln thecase of one of the boys, charged with "rape togetherwith an 18 year old co-accused, bail had been set atR1D00. He had requested that his bail be reduced sothat he could go back to school, but saJd that themagistrate concluded that: "in court there are noscholars but only criminals".One of the boys had stolen compact discs (CDS) tothe value of R295 from a supermarket chain store. Itappeared that, although the address of the parentswas known,, they had not been informed by theinvestigating officer of the arrest'of their child. Themagistrate did not enquire why they were not there,but simply set bail at R500 which the boy clearlycould not afford. In not one of the cases had there16 See footnote 10. .17 It has been estimated that 80% of South African families have incomes of less than R800 per month(Institute for Social Development, University of the Western Cape).18 Which provides for and lays down the conditions under which children may be temporarily detained inprisons or police cells where no other alternative is available.